TO ALL OF THE SCHINDER CLAN AND SELECTED IMPORTANT OTHERS
Please do not faint, have a heart failure or any other physical malfunction, because I am finally writing a letter something that I very seldom do as you all already know. Hold on to your hat here we go!!!!
Happenings of the week. Nancy is up to her armpits in getting ready for seminary to start on the 29th. Materials have been sent to all of the teachers except one, that teacher is still MIA (that means not yet called) in Sitka. Materials have been sent to the bishop to give to the new teacher when and if anyone ever gets called. Once someone is in place we will take a trip to Sitka for training. The fast ferry “Fairweather” gets us there in about 4 ½ hours, otherwise on the regular ferry it takes 10. We held a meeting with most of the teachers through out the stake last Sunday evening via the infamous polycom. You get to talk to the machine and hope everyone is listening and not sleeping. The chapel in Juneau is ready for the classes to begin and we think that is true for the outlying areas as well. The Seminary in Ketchikan has about 24 students total, Juneau has about 40 the rest of the other 8 units have between 2 and 7 each.
Now for the real kicker!!! The seminary course of study this year is the Old Testament. Guess what? The distribution center is out of Bibles===how do you like that one? Soooo Mom called Christine and she scoured the valley and found some for us and shipped them to Juneau via book rate and we have yet to see them. Such is life in Alaska.
Last Wednesday we were visited by the new Northwest Area Director for S&I. A real nice man, Gregg Bishop is his name. He moved to Seattle from Riverside, Ca about a month ago so he is in the process of visiting all the units in his area. Alaska has three S & I locations, Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau. While he was here we visited the college UAS Southeast and got the information we need to see if we can set up an LDSSA club on campus. We need a total of 10 members to apply for a club application. So far we are aware of now we have only 4 with a possibility of another 3 that will be taking only one class each semester. We also need a faculty advisor to be a sponsor, we have that base covered because one of real good members who is a prof. there. So if we can dredge up a few more students we can get it going.
Thursday I got invited to go fishing with a good friend. We dragged baits all over the placed but only found a real smelly skunk. We caught only a very small fish that looks like a sculpin in San Diego, but up here it’s known as a “double ugly”. So all we did was bruise some water and burn some gasoline, but fun none the less. It looks like the silver salmon season may have peaked and be over for the year. It has been a terrible fishing year for the Juneau area this year, oh well—there is always next year.
When Brother Bishop was here we showed him around a little and while we were at the glacier we saw three bears. One was only about 20 feet from us. There is a stream that is full of sockeye salmon about 18 to 20 inches long that are spawning there and the bears are hunting them and just hanging around the area and could care less that we are there. On Thursday evening Mom and I went to look for bears again and found a yearling cub sleeping in a tree. If I can figure out how to get the pictures off of my new camera and into the computer we will include them, really neat to see him just laying across a branch sound asleep.
With the exception of Thursday our week has been and will continue for about another week to be very rainy and dreary. Yuk!!! But as they say IT’S JUNEAU what do you expect! Right now mom is in the process of getting ready for another training meeting tomorrow night which will be the last one until seminary has been in session for awhile and we find out what’s going on around the area. We intend to visit most of the units between the 10th of Sept and the end of October. After that travel gets a bit dicey. If the water gets too rough the ferry doesn’t go and you get stranded for another day or two. It’s Alaska you know.
School starts on the 23rd and Seminary 29th so next week is our only sleep in week left for awhile. At least this year classes begin at 6:30 so we get an extra 30 minutes of mattress time. Days are already beginning to shorten, only 15 hours of sunlight, now if it could only get through the clouds. Right now the clouds are right down on the mountains, looks neat. Makes you think that you are at 10,000 feet or so and not at sea level.
So much for my first and possibly last letter from the fine metropolis of Juneau.
Love you all Dad and Mom
PS Mom just announced that it is a dark ugly day!!!!! And so it is.
